Minimum stay until end of April. Want to stay longer also can keep your PB.

Stay until end of June good?

Smoother transition for your school/students, if that's a priority. You also get paid for the final few weeks of sch hols.

But if you've got a next step in mind, you'll probably want to consider when they'd prefer you start working…

Should I start finding schools and writing in, before the OPE starts?
The Enhanced posting exercise for HQ officers should also be starting very soon, so i'm worried if I wait until OPE, the opportunities might be even fewer.

If you have been in service for a while and are well-networked, it could help. If you are cold-calling or cold-emailing, no use. If you want to start now, you are basically looking to pull strings through people who know you.

Does one need minimum C+ in the most recent ranking exercise to be promoted?

Perf grades are not hard requirements for promotion, neither are they auto-qualifying mechanisms for promotion. Only thing is you cannot get an adverse grade, i.e. C- or below.

The thing that determines your promotion is..... when HR tells your principal so.

That's the unfortunate truth about the scant information we EOs have about promotion :(

I think nowadays promotions have slowed down a lot, as posted by others in previous replies.

It's becoming something that seems to be timebound + CEP + maybe some other secret equation which we don't know.

You can have A/Bs but they prob look into how many years you are + CEP + other things which we EOs don't know, even SLs also don't know.

Mid Career
2019 Jan- NIE practicum
2019 Apr - GEO2
2020 Apr - C
2021 Apr - B+ : GEO3
2022 Mar - C+
2023 Mar - A : GEO4

Is this considered fast?

Yup, nowadays if you send an enquiry to HR, you will be told that: CEP no longer charts out your promotion rate in a deterministic way, unlike in the past.

In the past, it was very predictable. If your CEP was at a certain level, your promotions would come at a very predictable set of intervals as long as you didn't screw up and get adverse grades. If you performed consistently well, it may speed up, also at a predictable rate.

Nowadays, it appears that there are so many more factors involved that are no longer made known to any EOs, including your principals. One thing that is certain though, is that the rate has slowed down, not just for farmers but also for Ministry scholars. (PSC = different league)